Tuesday, March 4, 2008

There's a new technology that the Athens county dog shelter will offer to help owners keep their pets safe -- microchipping.

What is Microchipping?Having your pet "microchipped" involves putting a tiny chip inside the animal. A microchip scanner can be used to detect a pet's chip, displaying the pet's ID number. The ID can then be linked to the pet owner's contact information.

"It's just a secondary form of getting your dog home," Athens county Dog Warden Jamie Perry said. "Every dog that we bring into the shelter here we scan for microchips and if we find one obviously we'll call you immediately."

Dog Warden Jamie Perry on microchipping and its benefits

Additional BenefitsPerry said that the Athens County Dog Shelter will use the company HomeAgain when it begins microchipping pets in about a month. He said microchipping pets will protect them from more than getting lost -- it also allows a pet to maintain its identity if it is stolen. He said this is a big deal because disputes of pet ownership can be very hard to resolve.

"[That dispute] basically becomes one owner's word against the new owner's word of whose dog it is and it's impossible for me to distinguish that," Perry said. "If the dog had a microchip I could get microchip scanner out and actually scan the dog, the owner's name would come back and we could return the dog to the owner."

What will it cost?Perry said the shelter has not determined how much to charge to have a pet microchipped, but said it will probably cost about $14. He also said HomeAgain charges a yearly fee for its microchips.